Mass. Pharmacy plans another expansion

Thursday

Jan 10, 2013 at 6:00 AMJan 10, 2013 at 12:25 PM

By Nick Kotsopoulos TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

MCPHS University, formerly known as Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, has acquired a 3.5-acre property at Belmont and Lincoln streets — the former longtime home of the Morgan Construction Co. — and intends to redevelop the property into rental apartments for its graduate students, staff and faculty.

The college purchased the 15 Belmont St. property, which includes two connected buildings totaling about 90,000 square feet, for $2.9 million.

MCPHS President Charles F. Monahan Jr. said Wednesday night the college's first option is to renovate the two buildings into loft-style apartments. If that does not prove feasible, he said, it would then look at razing the buildings and constructing something new.

“Our first choice is to renovate the buildings, but we will first have to do all the engineering work necessary to determine if that can be done,” Mr. Monahan said in a telephone interview. “If it can't be done, we will then have 3.5 acres to work with.

“This opportunity was a hard thing for us to pass up,” he added. “To continue to enroll the highest-qualified students, we must continue to provide first-class housing opportunities. We believe this development will complement the exciting and dynamic revitalization of Lincoln Square and north Main Street.”

The acquisition of the former Morgan property comes less than four months after the Boston-based school announced it intends to double the number of students served by its Worcester campus over the next five to six years.

There are now about 1,200 graduate-level students and 300 faculty and staff members at MCPHS' downtown campus.

To accommodate that growth, the university last fall entered into an agreement to acquire 29 condominium units from a single owner at the North High Gardens at 50-60 Salisbury St., across from the Worcester Art Museum. The addition of those units will enable faculty, staff and graduate students to live in college-owned housing close to MCPHS academic buildings.

Just last week, it was announced that MCPHS has also pre-leased from SJ Realty of Westboro 26 micro-loft units that will be part of an overall 60-unit redevelopment of under-utilized downtown office buildings at 371 and 379 Main St.

City Manager Michael V. O'Brien said he fully supports MCPHS' next venture at 15 Belmont St.

He pointed out that the university has invested more than $350 million in the city since opening its Worcester campus in 2000, while asking for nothing more from the city than moral support.

“We will continue to work very closely with them to integrate their proposal with the other projects contemplated or under way throughout Lincoln Square and Gateway Park,” Mr. O'Brien said Wednesday night. “We expect they will take great care, as always, to meet and exceed our expectations to inter-relate their design and layouts to reflect the grandeur of Lincoln Square and all new investments in the area to date and those that are anticipated.”

Councilor-at-Large Frederick C. Rushton, chairman of the City Council Economic Development Committee, said the north end of Main Street and the Lincoln Square area are beginning to mirror the Longwood Medical area in Boston, with all the investments being made by Worcester Polytechnic Institute and MCPHS.

He said the redevelopment of the former Morgan property into housing for MCPHS will create an “economic centrifuge” for the north end of Main Street.

Mr. Rushton said the next step will be to encourage development opportunities for businesses that will be able to provide services and retail to the students, faculty and staff who will be living in the Lincoln Square area.

District 2 Councilor Philip P. Palmieri, whose district includes the Belmont Street property, said the redevelopment of that property will expand the footprint of the downtown to the other side in Lincoln Square, to include the redevelopment of the former Boys Club building, the former Worcester Vocational High School complex and Gateway Park.

“This will serve as a strong anchor for the downtown, and it will have a great mixed use with this kind of academic use,” Mr. Palmieri said. “You can't help but be thrilled by this and what it will mean for our city, the downtown and District 2.”

When first constructed, the Morgan Construction Company building housed its manufacturing of steel rod and bar rolling mills and bearings for the steel industry, before the company moved its manufacturing operations to Goldsberry Street.

In more recent years, the property was the site of the company's executive offices.

Mr. O'Brien said the property has been vacant for months. He said there is known brownfield contamination that must be addressed, as well as other environmental remediation that will also need to be factored in the reuse of the site.

“These are conditions that weighed heavy on any market reuse of this location,” the manager said.

Mr. Monahan said MCPHS changed its formal name a couple of months ago to reflect the fact that it has always been a university. To be called a university, he said, a school must offer at least two doctorate programs; he said MCPHS has nine.

He said MCPHS' Worcester campus attracts graduate level students from 39 states and abroad.

The Worcester campus offers programs that include doctor of optometry, doctor of pharmacy, doctor of physical therapy, PhD in pharmacology and pharmaceutics, master of science in pharmacology and pharmaceutics, master of physician assistant studies, and bachelor's and master's degrees in nursing.